Ingmar Guandique is escorted from the Violent Crimes Unit in Washington by detectives on April 22, 2009. / File photo by Jacquelyn Martin, AP

by Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

by Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Attorneys representing the 30-year-old man convicted in the slaying of government intern Chandra Levy asserted that their client's prosecution was "predicated on a lie,'' according to newly unsealed court documents in the high-profile murder case.

In heavily edited court filings and transcripts of two previously closed hearings in the case, attorneys for Ingmar Guandique, an illegal Salvadoran immigrant, suggested that prosecutors for months withheld information about the credibility of an unidentified government witness before alerting the trial judge and defense lawyers in November.

The documents were sealed and recent hearings in the case have been closed under a sweeping protective order issued in December by Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher because of what the judge described in the documents as "very substantial safety threats'' related to the case.

The protective order remains in place, but the partial documents and transcripts - all substantially redacted - were released after repeated requests by defense lawyers and a consortium of media organizations, including USA TODAY, who had objected to Fisher's order.

Nearly 200 pages of transcripts feature heated exchanges between defense lawyers and prosecutors who argued over such things as whether the broad protective order prevented defense lawyers from even sharing key developments in the case with their own client.

"I think we're being jerked around,'' defense attorney James Klein said at one point during a closed December hearing.

"Mr. Guandique and the public have a right to know precisely what happened at Mr. Guandique's trial and why the government allowed its prosecution to be predicated on a lie,'' defense attorneys said in court documents filed late last year in opposition to the judge's protective order.

Guandique was found guilty of Levy's murder in 2010 and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.